


Daffodils

by flannery_culp



Category: Scream (TV)
Genre: F/F, One Shot, Pre Cannon, before high school
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-18
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-08-09 15:24:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7807105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flannery_culp/pseuds/flannery_culp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Audrey has been able to avoid her feelings for Emma for a long time, but the official end of the summer before high school might force her to finally acknowledge them</p>
            </blockquote>





	Daffodils

"Turn your head," Emma said, tapping Audrey on the shoulder. Audrey turned to face her. She had been looking out at the pasture in the distance, where the horses were slowly grazing. She felt her cheeks flush as Emma brushed a stray hair out of her face and placed a daffodil behind her ear. She always blushed when people got too close. Especially Emma. It must have been because Emma was so comfortable in her own skin, and Audrey was so far from it.

"It matches your outfit perfectly," Emma said. They both giggled at the old joke. Audrey had never been one for pastel colors or floral sundresses. When they were younger, Emma liked to hold her accessories up to Audrey's face and tell her how good they looked with her cargo shorts. Audrey had done the same thing to Emma with her combat boots. It was one of those silly kid things that had stuck; a joke so old that they didn't even have to do it in order to find it funny.

"Girls," Emma's mother called. They both looked towards the parking lot, where she was standing with one foot outside of the car. "Ten minute warning, alright?" Audrey nodded, even though she hated to hear it. Had they really been here that long? Would she really have to go home so soon?

"Last riding lesson of the summer," Emma said, reclining onto her elbows. "You know what that means."

"Summer is officially over," Audrey said. She bent over onto her knees, digging her heels into the dirt.

"I can't believe we're going to be freshman," Emma said. "It still doesn't feel real."

"I'm sure that once we have twice the homework load we used to the reality will hit you," Audrey said.

Emma turned onto her side, resting her head on a closed fist. The strap of her tank top slipped so it rested slightly off of her shoulder. She didn't seem to notice. "Aren't you excited, though?" she asked. "We're finally in high school. The days of being awkward middle schoolers are totally behind us."

Audrey sighed. She had seen the high school. It was just a bigger version of the middle school. It was going to be full of all of the same kids they had been in class with the entire time that they lived in Lakewood. She didn't see how there would be any chance of starting fresh there. But it made Emma happy, and she didn't want to burst her bubble.

"If you could change one thing about yourself for high school," Audrey asked, "what would it be?"

Emma bit her lip without showing her teeth, the way she always did when she was deep in thought. "You're going to laugh at me when I tell you," she said.

"I won't laugh," Audrey said. "I promise."

"I kind of want to ditch the whole good girl thing," Emma said. Audrey tried to contain her laughter, but she simply couldn't. "See!" Emma said. "I knew you would laugh at me."

"I'm sorry," Audrey said, gasping for air. "It's just... You're Emma Duvall. Being the good girl is kind of your thing."

"It is not," Emma said.

"When we were in fourth grade you turned yourself in to the teacher for accidentally losing a marker cap," Audrey said. "And you cried the entire time."

"I guess you're right," Emma said. "I can be a good girl, I guess. I just don't want people to think that I'm one. Nobody wants that."

"I don't see what's so wrong with that," Audrey said. "I like you just the way you are."

"But boys don't," Emma said. "I'm never going to have a boyfriend if they all think I'm a goody two shoes."

Audrey tried to find a response, but the words all caught in her throat. "Boys are the worst," she finally said. The boys in middle school had been nothing but mean to her, and she didn't see how high school would be any different.

"If only we didn't want them so badly," Emma said. "What about you?"

Audrey's palms began to sweat. Wonderful, kind-hearted Emma couldn't see that she was the one all the boys wanted. Audrey was just her weirder, less attractive friend. Especially in comparison to someone as pretty as she was. "I don't see the options being much better this year than they were last year."

"I meant what do you want to change for high school?"

"Oh," Audrey said, relieved. "It's kind of dumb, but remember that film contest I entered last year?" Emma nodded. "I want to get more into that. I think that might be what I want to do with my life."

Emma sat up, her face suddenly intense and full of energy. "I will totally be an actress for any of your movies," she said.

"Well, I was thinking I would be making documentaries," Audrey said.

"Then we should make one about us!" Emma said.

"Us?"

"Two friends surviving the trials and tribulations of small-town high school," Emma said, her eyes focused on a point somewhere far away. "It would be an actual perspective on what it's like, instead of what some fifty year old person thinks it's like. It would be so cool."

"That actually sounds really fun," Audrey said. Maybe she could work with the fact that their high school had been the site of the Lakewood murders; some sort of social commentary on how today's public school system was metaphorically killing its students. Not that she would ever say that to Emma.

"As long as you promise to thank me when you win an academy award," Emma teased.

"How could I possibly forget to?" Audrey asked. "I'll tell the whole world that you were my muse and I would be nothing without you. And I'll do it every time. I'm good for like, seven or eight oscars, don't you think?"

Emma crumpled in laughter, her hand instinctively grabbing onto Audrey's. Audrey was torn between ripping it away and holding on tighter. It was that same feeling that had been bubbling up over the past few weeks. Maybe longer. It was hard to say. She had felt it when she had tripped and knocked over Emma's glass, and Emma had reach ached for her hand before the roll of paper towels. She had felt it when they were lying down on Audrey's bed with their legs all the way up against the wall because Emma was convinced that it was the key to meditation. When she heard the horn on Emma's mom's car in front of her house. When Emma loaned her a book that still had the gum wrapper she used as a bookmark stuck inside.

When Emma put that daffodil behind her hair and made the same stupid joke they had been making as long as they'd known each other.

This is sometimes how it was with friends. She had told herself that over and over. Friendship was love too, after all. Why should it feel so different from romance? Of course you loved your friends. Everybody felt this way. It was a totally normal feeling.

"I'm only half joking," Emma said, once she collected herself. Her hand was still on Audrey's. "I would love to make movie with you. Or even some sort of vlog or something. I mean, plenty of people get their start on youtube, right? And we would be the perfect team."

"Yeah," Audrey said. "We would."

Emma squeezed her hand before turning back to look at the horses, and suddenly that feeling that had been just under the surface pushed over. She wanted to grab her face and kiss her. To feel her Emma's soft cheeks on her fingertips and the stick of her pale pink lipgloss on her lips. And once she had finally identified the feeling, it was clear that that's what it had been all along. It was easy to lie to yourself when you didn't have a name for what was going on, but once you did, it was significantly harder.

Emma turned back, clearly aware that something had changed. "Audrey," she said. "Is everything okay?"

Before Audrey could answer, Emma's mother called to them from the car. "Okay girls," Maggie said. "Get your things. It's time to head home."

Without a word Emma grabbed both bags and they headed towards the car.

"Audrey, would you like to come over for dinner?" Maggie asked.

"Thanks, Mrs. Duvall," Audrey said. "But I'm not feeling great. I think I should just head home."

It wasn't a lie. She felt like the world was closing in around her, and she was pretty sure she was going to pass out at some point in the near future.

"I'm sorry, sweetie," Maggie said. "Come on, we'll get you home."

"Do you want the front?" Emma asked.

"Thanks," Audrey said, nodding. The ride home was going to be hard enough. She didn't think she could do it if she had a view of Emma's face.


End file.
